Official Lineup
At Newman Cinemaالفيلم عمل فدائي
A Fidai Film
2024
|Experimental Documentary
|78'
by Kamal Jafari
[Palestine, Germany, Qatar, Brasil, France]
Synopsis
In the summer of 1982, the Israeli army invaded Beirut. During this time, it raided the Palestinian Research Center and looted its entire archive. The archive contained historical documents of Palestine, including a collection of still and moving images. Taking this as a premise, 'A Fidai Film' aims to create a counter-narrative to this loss, presenting a form of cinematic sabotage that seeks to reclaim and restore the looted memories of Palestinian history. It’s a poignant exploration of identity, memory, and resistance, told through a unique blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques.
Official Poster
Biography
Kamal Aljafari, born in Ramla, is a Palestinian artist and filmmaker renowned for his distinctive approach to cinema. He studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and lives in Berlin. He has taught filmmaking at The New School in New York and the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin and is a fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination at Columbia University. In May 2024, IndieLisboa dedicated a retrospective to his work. In the same year, his film UNDR (2024) was selected at IFFR in Rotterdam and A Fidai Film (2024) was screened at Visions du Réel, where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the Burning Lights Competition. His latest documentary, With Hasan in Gaza (2025), premiered in the International Competition at the Locarno Film Festival. Aljafari is currently working on a fiction film to be shot in Jaffa.
Director's photo
